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Old 02-17-2017, 10:52 AM
 
2,144 posts, read 1,869,818 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by slyfox2 View Post

As I said before, I have an extensive existential online counseling service that I do free for people around the world and which takes up about 10-12 hours per week.
Do you find this fulfilling? Does it give you purpose?

Perhaps you can learn a way to expand it and thus become more fulfilled? Besides learning marketing techniques to expand the counseling service, perhaps write books on existential counseling, create an online community for people also interested in it or providing the same services. Create webinars or podcasts where people can "call in" and get help or discuss the process? A radio show?

All of these things -- how to do them -- can be learned online for free.

The idea is not more business, but more opportunities to help people and thus find a greater fulfillment quotient. Just a thought.

I'm nowhere near retirement and certainly busy, but I struggle with these "what is it all for?" type questions. I have to feed my kids, however, and am limited financially, so I can't really explore the things that I am more emotionally rewarded for.
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Old 02-17-2017, 10:55 AM
 
Location: Idaho
2,091 posts, read 1,918,803 times
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slyfox2,

You sounds like a highly educated and intelligent person who possesses maybe a bit too much self awareness.

I have never experienced an existential crisis but have seen others struggle with their and understand that it is quite difficult and painful.

My little understanding of existential crisis is that depression can be both the cause and the effect. I learned from another thread that you have fibromyalgia. From what I have learned about this illness, it can cause mood issues just like other intense and persistent pain problems.

I am neither a medical doctor nor a psychologist but it is easy to see how the combination of your life factors (forced into retirement from a job which had defined your life purposes/meaning, health issues, living location, S.A.D etc) could have worsened your mood, led to depression/existential crisis.

I wish you all the best and hope that you find the right help (medications, meditation, distraction, sublimation etc) to climb out of the depressive hole, to rediscover your life purpose, meaning or even joy.

Last edited by BellaDL; 02-17-2017 at 11:13 AM..
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Old 02-17-2017, 10:58 AM
 
12,049 posts, read 10,209,710 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by slyfox2 View Post
My father was very very busy in retirement. But I've discovered that busyness is not the same as fulfilling. My father was also a nut case with a number of serious disorders not the least of which might have been an undiagnosed case of borderline personality disorder.

I'm quite busy, but haven't been able to translate the fulfillment of my working life into something of the same in retirement. Not the least of which is that fact that I struggle with the age problem where people feel that old people don't know anything because they are clearly feeble. And the situation where volunteer positions are limited to grunt work that a 4th grader could do. I also live in an area where all the high level work jobs are taken since the population is small. So unless I moved, those kinds of jobs don't exist for me here. The benefits of a highly scientific community(two major laboratories and a college) doesn't help in that while I have a Master's Degree, nearly all of the high level volunteer positions go to those with a PHD. Every third person here has one. It makes for some really interesting and entertaining things to do, but not a lot of options in participating in the doing.

You win some, you lose some! Life!

As to making the adjustments before you retire....there is really no way to do that. I did the best I could. I moved to a place where there is an active Senior College. I moved to a place where the number of retirees is great, and so there are a lot of people here who are near my age, but not many baby boomers yet. I moved to a place which had many of the things I wished that I had where I lived before. The feeling of alienation didn't happen initially. Its something that has only happened over the past year or so of my six years of retirement.

I have another friend here who is experiencing it also. No matter what I want to do, or try to re-arrange, at age 68 I cannot compete with people who are 28, and the problem is that except for my body, I am still 28 in my mind. I have not accepted that I am elderly now, and as I get older and older I'm discovering its something that constrains me from being the 28 year old that I am inside.

I'm like that Movie BIG with Tom Hanks. I would have to say that 99% of the people that I know are 68 or older. They are definitely not 28 year olds in 68 year old bodies(with the exception of one who is 90 and is actually 22 years old).
I don't see why you can't go back to school and get those credentials. My roommate is 70 and is getting prepped to attend law school soon. He likes the challenge.
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Old 02-17-2017, 11:06 AM
 
18,657 posts, read 33,258,064 times
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I think of the area I'm moving to in retirement (Western Slope of Colorado) and how there are virtually no mental health/detox services. I'm thinking that OP could work on a sliding scale in an area where there is so much need and so few resources, use their expertise and really help people.
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Old 02-17-2017, 11:07 AM
 
Location: RVA
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Excellent response from Belladl. I couldn't have worded my own thoughts better.
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Old 02-17-2017, 11:35 AM
 
4,901 posts, read 8,712,485 times
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Have you talked to God about it? He has a purpose for you that even you could not dream up.
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Old 02-17-2017, 11:48 AM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BellaDL View Post
slyfox2,

You sounds like a highly educated and intelligent person who possesses maybe a bit too much self awareness.
Can you have too much of that? If I told you the whole of my self awareness you would not believe me. I have memories going back to my actual birth, and the minutes afterward, almost 68 years ago, including the time in my mother's womb in the hours before birth. I remember a lot of my first years of life including the time in the crib looking up at the mobiles swinging back and forth. When I told my mother that, she said it wasn't possible, so I described the apartment we lived in until I was 6 months old, the steps up to it, my bedroom and the living room dining room kitchen. She shut up about my not remembering.

And then there is the self awareness brought on by 25+ years of raja yoga meditation---another category altogether.
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Old 02-17-2017, 11:52 AM
 
3,925 posts, read 4,106,396 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Luvvarkansas View Post
Have you talked to God about it? He has a purpose for you that even you could not dream up.
Of course..... we've talked about this many times. HE assures me that its an issue my body is making up as a result of old age, and that its really not a reality, and that I should give it up. HE had given me a number of options some of which I am pursuing, and some which I have resisted, but will eventually have to do actively.

And of course I believe HIM. But there are times when I slip back and forget when HE told me.

Thanks fro reminding me about those discussions.

You weren't kidding, right? I mean I really do have the conversations.
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Old 02-17-2017, 11:53 AM
 
7,898 posts, read 7,085,355 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by slyfox2 View Post
My father was very very busy in retirement. But I've discovered that busyness is not the same as fulfilling. ....
There we go. This is exactly why a write about examining one's life and finding purpose, passions, goals. That is much different than just finding activities and filling time. Many people will go to their graves never understanding the difference, or perhaps I should say not even caring about the difference.
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Old 02-17-2017, 11:54 AM
 
Location: SC
8,793 posts, read 8,119,443 times
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Sounds like this is something that can easily be cured with a hobby or two.
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